Vulcan, God of the Forge, Left in Pieces

In nineteen oh-three, the Commercial Club of Birmingham commissioned an Italian sculptor named Giuseppe Moretti to build something extraordinary for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the nineteen oh-four World's Fair in St. Louis. The city wanted to show the world what Birmingham could make. What Moretti designed was Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and forge, rendered in cast iron, fifty-six feet tall, weighing sixty tons. It was the largest cast-iron statue ever made, and it still holds that distinction.

Moretti built a six-foot clay model in New Jersey, then shipped the plans to Birmingham, where the Birmingham Steel and Iron Company cast the statue in twenty-nine separate sections. The sections were bolted together and sent to St. Louis in time for the fair, where Vulcan stood in the mining and metallurgy exhibition and won the grand prize.

Then the fair ended. The statue was dismantled and shipped home on rail cars. When the cars arrived in Birmingham, the freight bill had not been paid. Vulcan sat in pieces beside the tracks. For years, he simply stayed there. Eventually the statue was re-erected at the Alabama State Fairgrounds, where it stood in a somewhat reduced state, minus his spear, which had been lost somewhere between St. Louis and Alabama, and with his arms installed incorrectly.

It was not until nineteen thirty-six, when the Works Progress Administration funded a proper park on top of Red Mountain, that Vulcan finally went up in a form close to what Moretti intended. He stands there today, looking out over a city built by the industry he represents. The city that left him in pieces beside a railroad track now puts him on every official brochure.